In My Time

Summary: Thank you Marauder by Midnight for the banner Isabella Marie Swan and Edward Anthony Mason were just sixteen and seventeen before they met, their destinies never seeming to cross paths. Living in the very outskirts of Chicago, Bella doesn’t want to be married as quickly as society wants. Edward wants to help assist President Wilson by fighting in the World War. Plans seemed to all change when, unexpectedly, with one little spark, a fire seemed to ignite the both of them. Through troubles beyond comprehension, the times of properness and society, influenza on the rise, and abhorrent losses- perhaps even their own deaths, the two of them must concur them all. But can they? A love story to the fullest-but of course, even the best love stories have tragedy and losses nestled inside. (2nd most favorite on the site! Thanks guys! Also-In My Time was on display in Waterstones Bookstore, located in Oxford,United Kingdom for a twilight event)

Notes:
- alright, I have a VERY good feeling about this story, and I am hoping you will too. Disclaimer- I own nothing, I just write fan fic, and I love doing it :)

26. In Sickness and In Health

Was it possible to grasp onto only lies in order to feel like you were living?

Was I even living?

Well, if I was, it wasn’t happily.

Lies. The only thing that made me feel any ounce of hope was fabrication. When I talked to Mother at the hospital, she even told me aspersions. “Your Father is doing fine-everything will be fine.”

But he wasn’t doing fine. Everything was not going to be fine.

Dishonesty seemed to be the key at the moment, even if everyone knew the truth that was locked inside of all of us.

I was sure I felt more forlorn than anybody at this moment. I was the only one who knew I would be leaving for war in five weeks. I didn’t dare tell my mother, for she was busy worrying about Father and even Bella. I couldn’t tell Bella-she was already sick as it was and the horrific news would speed up her illness for the worse, I was sure.

I would have gone straight to Collin and Leo, vented and let loose on everything I was feeling and thinking. But they weren’t here and there was nothing neither I nor they could do about it. I would have to keep my mouth shut and bite my tongue, and I would just have to try and get through it. Part of me didn’t even believe the letter. Maybe that was because the other part of me didn’t want to have anything to do with it.

I couldn’t worry anyone with the news-nobody else deserved to go through all of this at once, like I was and am.

I shivered once as I walked into the kitchen, not at my normal speed. On top of everything else, I felt horrible. It wasn’t the stay-home-from-school-for-a-day type of flu. I wanted to die-even that sounded horrible in my mind. A shudder wracked through my body.

I swallowed, making a choking sound. Each time I swallowed my throat burned and ached. I pulled my jacket closer to me-it felt like Antarctica in this house, even though I knew it wasn’t less than seventy degrees. I didn’t notice my reflection as of late, but I jumped back when I saw myself in the mirror of the kitchen. I was pale-a very sickly pale. My eyes were red with lack of sleep and I looked thinner. I hadn’t really eaten a normal sized meal in the last few days because everything seemed rather unappetizing.

I took a glass from the counter and began to fill it with water. I didn’t want to look back at that mirror, afraid to look at myself again. I shut the faucet off, and turned around, away from the glass to cough. There was a strong tickle in my throat-though it felt more like an itching-when I coughed, it scratched it away. But my throat was infused in flames when I did so, and I gripped the counter edge for support because of the pain and weakness. My head ached and I shivered again.

I was sick. Beyond sick. Everything was going to pieces around me, including myself. But I would push-I would move on. I would live with the encouragement of falsity. I smiled grimly to myself- We would be okay.

I took the glass and walked up the stairs, descending towards Bella. She needed to drink water, and she was worse than I.

Was I sure of that?

I made it to the top of the stairs before my hand started shaking. The water in Bella’s glass sloshed around, spilling over the edges. I was exhausted. My body was famished, though I myself was not hungry. I was sick with the influenza that seemed to take over my life. I saw the stairs falling away from my face, and I heard the glass breaking as it slipped from my weak grip, releasing its contents all over the floor. I fell backwards, the hard wood stairs hitting the back of my head before all was black.

If the influenza had taken over my life, would it end it as well?

~Isabella Marie Mason’s Point of View~

I was jolted awake.

I was mostly asleep….as I had been for endless days, it seemed. I wasn’t aware of the time or even the day. Night or day it didn’t matter-everything was still the same with me.

Time felt as if it stood still-unchanging, unmoving. There was no progress….at least, no progress in the right direction. I wasn’t getting any better-I was only getting worse. Edward knew it, and so did I. There was no use pretending otherwise.

He always encouraged me when he came in….at least; I thought I heard him say that we would be okay, that we would be fine in the end. But I couldn’t tell the difference between reality and dreams-the fever was too high, and too constant.

We didn’t talk much, as of late. I couldn’t talk-my voice was a stranger to me. Part of it was because I just simply didn’t have the strength to form words out of my mouth, and part of it was because I was afraid of what I sounded like. I was so deathly afraid of how bad even that was-my voice was the last thing that was healthy in me. I didn’t want to ruin it now-not when hope was slipping away from both of our grasps.

But it was a sound that woke me up from my dreamless slumber. A sound…I tried to place the sound with objects….there was a high pitch crunch that repeated over itself for what seemed like a million times before stopping after 1 second or so. Glass breaking. There was something else…that sounded heavier. Something heavy…but not completely hard….but hard enough to make noise…was falling down the stairs.

“Edward?” I called out, alarmed. My breath caught-my voice. It was hardly recognizable, raspy and so soft that even as I tried to scream his name it came out as only a whisper. I didn’t speak…didn’t hear it in so long. That was gone too-the last healthy part. I was completely ill-but it wasn’t like I didn’t know that already.

I waited for an answer, my heart beat speeding up. All that answered me was complete silence. A tear escaped my eye and rolled down my hot face when I realized what I had to do. What I had to make sure didn’t happen.

It was as if every joint and bone was aching in my body. It was as if my head had its own horrible heart beat, pulsing and making it hard to think and sleep and do anything. And the coughing-it was uncontrollable- An itch that never fully went away, even after I tried to cough and get rid of it. That only seemed to cause it to inflame, as I found out every time I did it-but I couldn’t control it. I just felt so horrible…and sleeping felt more like passing out than anything else. I was in a constant condition-a horrible condition that I had lived with for so long.

That pain was nothing compared to when I pulled my blankets away from me-they seemed like a hundred pounds, and it made my arms hurt so badly. I bit my lip after coughing and tried to slip onto my feet, but it just resulted in me almost collapsing. I was starting to doubt if I could do this. But I kept on trying. Though my legs felt like gelatin and couldn’t carry my weight, I made it to the closest wall. I grasped it firmly and called out his name again. Still nothing. I gently inched my way to the floor-I was sure crawling would be quicker. There wasn’t anything I could hold on to for support in the hallway.

“Edward?” I asked again, cringing from the own sound of my voice. It reminded me of my mother’s-the last time I ever saw her. This was how she felt. How did she do it? Then I remembered that she really didn’t. But how was I doing this now? My head felt like it would explode, and my body was threatening to give out on me. There was still no answer from my whisper call, and that was when I felt something wet before a sharp pain entered my palms. I gasped and leaned myself against the side of the hallway, which felt a mile long.

My palms were wet from what looked like water, but glass pieces were embedded into them as wall. More tears ran down my face as I pulled the pieces out, blood now covering my hands. Blood-my stomach lurched. I place the wet hand on my mouth, and I swallowed. Blood was something I could never look at or even smell-even the color, bright crimson, would make me flinch. I usually got sick or passed out from it. I had to get over that. I looked at the source of glass-at the very top of the stairs there were a lot more glass pieces, and a deformed figure of a cup. Water splattered even over here along with the microscopic glass pieces. Edward must have dropped this. But where was he?

My eyes flashed to the stairs, and that’s when I started to scream. “EDWARD!” it was like a horrible nightmare. You couldn’t move fast enough-your legs and even arms couldn’t drag you to your desired destination quickly enough. You couldn’t scream for help loud enough. I was frustrated and scared and horrified all at once.

I moved past the glass as quickly as I could before trying to slide smoothly down the stairs. If I fell too, then who would help him? I hoped that the strange sound wasn’t him…I had hoped. Hope failed me. It was as if I saw it completely leave my reach…it had dangled on a string in front of me for these past days, and now the string was cut -hope didn’t help anymore.

I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do this. I had to do this-but I couldn’t. It hurt so bad…I was so tired and cold. My head….it ached.

I looked up from the dark hard wood floors once I was almost at the bottom of the stairs to see him. “Edward!” I cried out, and I didn’t care that it hurt, I knew that I wouldn’t get to him as fast, so I let myself fall the last four or five steps to get to him. I hit the floor with a hard smack, and I tried desperately to get over the stinging and attend to him.

He was trying to bring me water. He was trying to keep taking care of me. I took my hand and felt for a pulse-good, there was one. He was bleeding…on his head. I felt my stomach turn but I gulped and tried to ignore it. Did I realize how horrible he looked? Though there were fresh purple bruises starting to appear on his skin…oh he was so pale. He was so fragile looking and weak. When I felt his forehead, I knew it must have felt the same as mine. He was so sick, and yet he was taking care of me? “-I promise to devote every possible moment to you, to give you eternal happiness, and to never stop taking care of you as long as we are both on this earthand beyond…” It was from when he proposed….he kept his promise.

“Edward, wake up.” I begged, holding his head in my lap. He was still unconscious from the fall, but I wanted to see his green eyes-to see and make sure for real. I needed something else to prove he was okay besides a heartbeat. I suddenly wished we had talked more-I wanted to talk with him now. I yearned for his voice, which was calming and smooth and perfect…

I needed to get him help. “I’ll be right back.” I promised him, moving so that I was heading in the direction of our phone. I felt horrible-but Edward was my life now, and I would do anything if that meant saving him.

“Hospital.” A nurse said.

“I need an ambulance at 62001Whitlock Avenue. Please, my husband he-” I must have sounded hysteric, but I couldn’t tell. You could hardly hear me anyway. But now I was aware of how my hands were shaking as I tried to talk into the phone and how drenched my face was from tears.

“Ma’am please calm down an ambulance has been sent.” She assured me.

“The key…for the door it’s in the flower pot next to the door-I can’t get to it.” I explained.

“Okay, ma’am I’ll be sure they are notified.” She told me.

“Thank you.” I breathed, and then I hung up so I could get back to Edward. I went limp; my head on his chest, listening to his heart beat. There was no energy left. As long as he would be okay I was okay. Ouch. Everything hurt-my breathing, now ragged and heavy, kept an unsteady beat as I tried to focus. The pain was too much. My eyes looked up at the ceiling before black started to enclose around me. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. My mind, trapped in a sick body, was becoming foggy.